Elder Bryant Goodman: Church History Tour

Hello everyone! Greetings from Chester! (I am on exchange till thursday! I love exchanges) Wow it sounds like a lot is going on back at home... farewells, temple, broken foot, cute&loopy wisdom teeth video, and general family lovin and adventures. I love you all, and I miss you all, but I'm so glad that you are crazy supportive and loving towards me. Work is going great here, and i'll squeeze in as much as i can during the short time that i have here in this library that smells of old people and old books.

So last tuesday I got to go on an incredible Church history tour! Half of the mission gathered together and our first stop was the Liverpool docks. My very first instinct was to just jump into the water. I am craving it, and every time I see the ocean, it brings back memories of beach camping. Luckily my beach-sickness was shortly lived after i hooked up with my missionary friends and we had an adventurous day. We looked around the Liverpool museum, and it had a lot of exhibits about the early emigrants in the 1800's and ship life and.....a lot of weapons! I think 90% of the pictures I took was of the old school pirate guns and primitive african bows and swords. It was was good. We then all boarded the coach and headed up to the River Ribble in Preston, to where the first british baptisms were. Again, more water, more of a temptation to jump in and swim. The park nearby was incredible, and we all lounged on the hills and had a mini devotional thing. I think i was more captivated by the beauty of my surroundings rather than the speakers though. I wish I could have spent all day there. We then headed up to a lovely little green hilly village of Downham, and ate lunch by yet another river. We then all gathered together in the old cathedral there, where the early missionaries once taught. The experience was incredible. The hymns that we sang in there filled the crazy-acoustic chapel, and it was truly powerful. Especially when we all belted out The Spirit of God. One of my favorites. Then the speakers spoke, which i actually listened to this time, and the spirit could be felt even more strongly. The meeting ended with the farewell testimonies of the old missionaries, which included my dear Finnish friend Elder Marijanen (Elder Marijuana as the members called him). Luckily, after the whole tour and after our very long coach ride back (the ride was beautiful by the way) i got to go on exchange with him! He filled me in on all his old missionary wisdom, and we just talked about music and cooked killer breakfast burritos.

Other than that, not much has happened out of the ordinary work. We have still been working with a lot of the chinese families, and I have even gotten to help make and eat some of the traditional chinese meals. This week I made sweet potato dumplings filled with oysters and weird chinese seaweed-leave stuff (weird texture, but the taste was alright), and i ate more weird traditional dishes, including strong smelling sea oysters, mini-whole fried fish, excellent garlic cucumbers and a soup of mysterious contents that i didnt have the courage to ask what was in it. It looked completely alien. Or maybe what comes out of an alien after he ate a meal.

Having been in the area for so long, basically all the little kids know me now, and I know all of them. Many times while we are traveling, we meet some of our mini friends along the way, and we play catch up games of football and ninja. I love it. I also know most of the rougher crowd as well. I lost track of how many times i have been offered weed and other drugs, and I have gotten really good at dodging rocks and other things thrown at me. There are some major rough places in Wrexham, but I am glad that i was born here. Haha it will just make a lot of the other areas seem so much nicer and posh. Oh yeah, tranfers are coming up!!!!!!!!!!!!! This saturday we will get the glorious transfer call, and I'm dead positive that I will be moved out. 6 months in wrexham, craziness!!! I am stoked to get out and be in a new fresh place. So just as a heads up, i wont be able to email until next thursday because of the transfer wednesday. Oh and if you are going to mail anything or any letters, please send them to the mission office until after i get settled in. Thanks!

Well that's about all the time that i have for now. i love you all, and I will keep you up to date on my adventures next week. Peace out!

Elder Goodman

aka BA

p.s. at night, our flat was filled with moths. So...i made a blowgun with a needle dart and have been hunting. That much hasnt changed

Chinese-ness